Are Bats Blind? Amazing Bat Facts for Kids

Bats make up a quarter of the world’s population of mammals!

Bats are the only mammals that can fly. Other mammals can glide for short periods of time but not truly fly.

Bats are nocturnal, meaning they hunt and are awake at night.

Are bats blind? The answer is no. Bats can see but not well at night.

Most bats use echolocation to help them identify objects at night.

Echolocation is a system of locating and determining what an object is based on sound waves and echos.

How Echolocation works: Bats will send out a high-pitched sound wave or noise using their mouth and sometimes nose. The high-pitched noise cannot be heard by the human ear. The sound wave will hit an object then the sound will echo back to the bat. The bat can determine what the object is based on the sound of the echo.

There are over 1,000 different types of bats in the world.

Bats live on every continent except Antarctica.

Bats do not live in extremely cold or extremely hot desert locations.

Different types of bats eat different types of food.

Some types of food that bats eat are: insects, fruits, fish, small mammals and even blood.

Don’t worry only vampire bats eat blood.

There are three species of vampire bats. They live in both Central and South America.

Vampire bats get most of the feeding blood from birds.

Bats live in many different types of habitats. They can live in caves, parts of trees, under bridges, unused mines, buildings, human made bat house, they even sometimes get to attics in houses.

Bats sleep upside down.

Can bats be harmful to humans? Bats can carry rabies but according to the Center of Disease Control humans are more likely to be exposed to rabies from domesticated dogs and cats who have the disease.

Do bats attack humans? Bats do not attack humans! If a bat is trapped in a room it might panic and accidently fly into you but they will not attack you on purpose.

Bats actually can be helpful to humans.

Bats help humans by eating insects that destroy farmers crops, some bats pollinate flowers and spread seeds for new flowers and plants.

Bats even help with getting rid of mosquitos. Brown Bats can catch over 1,000 mosquitos in an hour!

Bats give birth to usually one baby bat called a pup. Rarely bats will have twins.

Pups are born without hair and drink milk from their mothers.

The smallest type of bat is the Kittis Hog-Nosed Bat also known as the Bumble Bee Bat.

Kittis Hog-Nosed Bats are only 1.2 inches long and weighs under 1 pound.

Kittis Hog-Nosed Bats live in Thailand.

The largest bat is the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox Bat. It is in the Megabat family.

The Giant Golden-Crown Flying Fox Bat is 22 inches long and weighs about 3.5 pounds. It can have a wingspan of 5.9FT.

The Giant Golden Flying Fox Bat is a type of fruit bat and live in the Philippines.

Did you know that bat poop is called guano. Guano is sometimes used for fertilizer.